YOU CAN DO IT!: LANGUAGE AND PERSISTENCE IN SCHOOL- AGED CHILDREN

• Grant number: 23/16409-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Débora de Hollanda Souza
• Grantee: Luana Barretto Borges
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/50909-8 - INCT 2014: Behavior, Cognition and Teaching (INCT-ECCE): relational learning and symbolic functioning, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/08290-2 - Language and Persistence in School-Aged Children: an international collaboration with the Toronto Early Cognition Lab at The University of Toronto, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

From a very young age, infants are exposed to new and challenging situations, but when they are faced with everyday challenges, they need to be persistent. Studies have shown that individual differences in persistence emerge as young as 18 months of age and can predict academic performance and motivation years later. Furthermore, recent research has demonstrated a relationship between the type of language to which babies and children are exposed (e.g., praise that values effort vs. praise for children's characteristics) and their individual persistence in challenging situations. However, as far as we know, there are no studies testing possible relations between the language used by children and their level of persistence. Therefore, the present research aims to investigate a possible relationship between the type of language used by 7- to 8-year-old children during the narration of a wordless book (which presents several challenging situations to the main character) and performance on a persistence task. In this task, children will be asked to solve a problem (e.g., opening a box that contains a toy, but which is very difficult to open) and the time during which the child persists in the challenge will be measured. We hope the present study may contribute to a better understanding of possible predictors of individual persistence in Brazilian children.